Entertainment Era: Starting with Teaching Sister Meng to Sing

"Shut up, the weather forecast is coming."

"Why are you still checking the weather forecast after you've finished cleaning up the autumn harvest? Are you afraid it'll snow tomorrow and you'll freeze to death, you little rascal! Tell me right now, what are we going to do with the 20,000 yuan that the third brother's family has? My Zhou'er still hasn't bought a cotton-padded coat."

"My third son's wife is about to die, how am I supposed to ask them for money?"

......

Wang Xiaozhou, lying on the kang (a heated brick bed), pulled the quilt over his head and laughed until he was shaking.

A day has passed, and he is now finally certain that he is truly back.

We've gone back to that autumn of 2012!

Despite some changes in the world—Dao Lang never sang "The First Snow of 2002," Jay Chou's discussion of Li Zongsheng is nowhere to be found, and Andy Lau and director Jay Chou haven't released a single film—none of these matters.

The important thing is that the people and things around me haven't changed. My parents are still the same parents, my relatives are still the same relatives, and my wife is still in junior high school at the school next door. That's enough!

He could even use his rebirth to do some small business and make a good life for his whole family.

Even if things don't go well, I can still buy that lottery ticket 369 or 131619 sometime in 2019. In short, I'll have a safety net for life!

The couple, who were sitting on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed) and hadn't reached a conclusion to their argument, suddenly fell silent. Watching their son trembling under the covers, Ma Xiaoping couldn't bear to look and covered her eyes. Wang Jianguo stepped forward and slapped his buttocks under the covers.

"Hey kid, what are you doing!"

Wang Xiaozhou poked his head out from under the covers, looked at his parents, and finally couldn't help but burst into laughter, making them feel uneasy. Wang Jianguo pretended to scold him again, but before he could say anything, Wang Xiaozhou crawled back under the covers, covered his head, and wiped away the tears of laughter.

That's great, Dad's slaps to himself have become powerful again.

"Gada".

Wang Jianguo pulled the light cord, and the only yellow light source in the room went out, but there were still patches of light on the red bricks inside. If he remembered correctly, the moonlight was just like this when he was a child.

Soon Wang Jianguo started snoring, and Ma Xiaoping joined in, the two of them creating a symphony. Wang Xiaozhou tossed and turned, unable to sleep, not because he was being disturbed, but because it was just too early. What good child would go to sleep after watching the weather forecast at 7:30?

It was probably late into the night when Wang Xiaozhou finally felt sleepy and fell into a deep sleep after making more than twenty plans for his new life.

The next day, Wang Xiaozhou was awakened at five o'clock in the morning by a piercing sound. It was the sound of a spatula scraping the last bit of water out of the big iron pot, mixed with the whispers of Wang Jianguo and his wife.

"At seventeen or eighteen, he's bound to be full of energy. Just pretend you can't see him. Why hit him? What if you scare him into having a mental breakdown?"

"It's not that easy for him to get sick. I'm just worried about him harming his health."

"Guilan came to me yesterday complaining that Wu Laosan is weak. I guess it's because you kicked him when he was peeing as a kid, and now that he's older, he's having problems."

"Should we take him to the hospital to get him checked out?"

"We'll see."

......

Wang Xiaozhou felt that if he continued to sleep, even worse things might happen, so he quickly got dressed and went to the kitchen to help his parents cook.

At the dinner table, Ma Xiaoping kept putting food on Wang Xiaozhou's plate.

"Eat more, it'll help you grow taller. After you finish eating, come to town with Mom to see your third aunt. Just wear that plaid shirt."

Wang Xiaozhou sighed. He knew his mother was definitely taking him to collect debts.

My third uncle is ten years younger than my father. After retiring from the army, he worked at a rice mill. He was living a good life. During holidays, he would receive more rice, flour, and cooking oil than he could eat, and they would always send some to our house.

Unfortunately, my third aunt was in poor health and was diagnosed with lung cancer, which was in the middle to late stages, only a year after she got married.

The cancer cells have metastasized to distant sites, and chemotherapy is the only way to sustain life.

These days, chemotherapy costs a lot. My aunt is a rice mill worker and has proper medical insurance, but even after the medical insurance reimbursement, the remaining amount still consumes the couple's wages, and they usually have to borrow money to make ends meet.

In my memory, it was during this winter in my past life that my third uncle had no more money to lend, so he had to stop my third aunt's chemotherapy. The poor woman didn't make it through the year and passed away in the winter.

After that, my third uncle rarely contacted my family anymore. Perhaps he thought that if he hadn't returned the 20,000 yuan to my family, my wife could have lived longer.

Thinking back to before his rebirth, when that man was still scrimping and saving to pay off his debts, Wang Xiaozhou's heart softened.

"Mom, Auntie's chemotherapy costs are too high, and we don't have any urgent need for money. Why don't we skip it today?"

Wang Jianguo put a fried egg in Wang Xiaozhou's bowl: "Take good care of yourself."

Ma Xiaoping angrily slammed the bowl on the table with a loud bang: "You two are both good people, and I'm just a miser, okay?!"

Wang Jianguo shoveled rice into his mouth, but the words he spoke were not his and had nothing to do with him.

Wang Xiaozhou wanted to say a few words of advice, but before he could speak, an alarm sounded.

When my mom cries, she always gathers her strength like this first, drawing out her voice into a long line, and then follows it with a series of bursts of sound.

"Your father is useless. He toils in the fields all year, and in the end, all he gets is that pile of iron lumps in the yard."

There's no work to be done nearby in the dead of winter, so I have to get up before dawn to pick beans. I only earn twenty yuan a day, which is just enough to feed you two.

You two are both pretending to be good people now, but who knows that the soy sauce bottle at home has been empty for two days.

There's only a thousand dollars left in the savings account. We haven't paid Xiaozhou's tutoring fees, we haven't bought coal for winter, and we haven't bought any new clothes for the three of us for the winter.

With a "smack," Ma Xiaoping slammed her hand on the table, ending the conversation.

"If you don't ask for money, tell me, are we even going to survive?"

Wang Jianguo didn't say a word, threw the bowl and chopsticks into the iron pot, went back into the house, and lit a cigarette.

Wang Xiaozhou kept comforting his mother, but at the same time felt a little helpless.

I almost forgot, our family has been living in poverty all these years.

Like most rural families in Northeast China, Wang Xiaozhou's family relied on the meager harvest from their land and the odd jobs that Ma Xiaoping did to make a living. The 20,000 yuan that his third uncle borrowed was all the family's savings.

Grain prices are bad this year, and we don't have much money left at home. If we don't get that 20,000 yuan back, we really won't be able to make ends meet this winter.

Every family has its own difficulties. In his previous life, Uncle San was still resentful about his mother's behavior of asking for money at this time. It was also a way for him to vent his own poverty. After all, everyone knew that a rural woman who was focused on making a living could not possibly have any bad intentions. She just wanted to take care of her own little family.

After finishing their meal, Wang Jianguo came out to clear the table. Wang Xiaozhou still got on the back of his mother's bicycle, and the two of them headed to the county town together. No matter how reluctant they were, they still had to live their own lives.

We should definitely ask for that money back.

Along the way, the autumn wind made his forehead ache. After entering the hospital, he stood in the warm air at the entrance for a while before he felt better. He asked at the oncology ward nurses' station which ward his third aunt was in. Wang Xiaozhou and his mother carried a basket of eggs into the room.

Wow, the familiar green paint on the wall, it shines brightly with just a wipe of a cloth, but unfortunately it will be replaced by blue in a few years.

When I was little, my mom would clean glass medicine bottles after I had an IV drip and use them as thermos flasks, and sometimes she would use them to store milk.

The rubber band used to bind arms and constrict blood vessels—I'm really familiar with this; I've been using it for 25 years.

And the face next to the hospital bed is also very familiar, so beautiful, but I don't remember seeing this person when I visited my aunt in my past life, so where does this sense of familiarity come from?

As if to answer Wang Xiaozhou's question, a "ding" sound came from somewhere in his mind, followed by a series of mechanical sounds.

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